Tag Archives: Kolkata

Etihad Airways touched down in Kolkata as the airline made its much-anticipated return to the city. With a total of seven weekly nonstop services, the airline will once again connect India’s financial capital, Kolkata, with the world through Abu Dhabi. The first flight on the new service, EY256, departed Abu Dhabi with a full load of passengers at 1:50pm local time on 26 March and touched down at Kolkata’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Airport last night at 8:10pm local time. Upon arrival in Kolkata, passengers were welcomed with a cake cutting ceremony and a celebration attended by Etihad and Kolkata Airport Executives. The return flight, EY257, departed Kolkata at 9:05pm local time on 26 March, landing in Abu Dhabi shortly after midnight. Arik De, Chief Revenue Officer, said, Etihad Airways, said: “Riding on the resurgence of outbound travel from India, we’re delighted to resume daily flights to Kolkata, a key cultural and commercial hub in the Indian subcontinent. Re-establishing this vital air link with East India will support the growing demand from travelers in and around the region, offering them easy access to Abu Dhabi and connectivity to our global network alongside a world-class flying experience. We have been very impressed with our initial demand, which reaffirms our strategy to return to this key market.” The flights will be operated with an Airbus A320 aircraft, offering Etihad’s award-winning service to guests in 8 seats in Business Class and 150 in Economy, convenient flight timings to the UAE’s capital city and seamless connections to destinations across the airline’s growing global network of 67 destinations. From dune bashing in the desert to relaxing on its pristine beaches, soaking up rich UAE heritage …

Golden Sands Hotel Apartments (GSHA) continues to be the preferred accommodation of visitors from India as shown by the increased interest received by the team at a tourism roadshow held in Delhi recently. Over 400 trade professionals comprising key travel and tour operators, wedding planners and upmarket leisure operators from the city attended the roadshow organised by the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM). Mohammed Khoori, General Manager, said, “The roadshow opened up new opportunities to tap agents who are not familiar with Golden Sands Hotel Apartments. It was the ideal platform to interact with a significantly higher number of travel agents and tour operators that market a new segment of travellers from India. The main market segments that we are looking at tapping in India this year are the group series departures and the family segment travellers who will be heading for the New Year and Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) 2019. Our main focus on expanding and consolidating ties with the new travel segment was to reach out to a larger audience and gain a higher market share.” Earlier in the year, the team of GSHA joined another DTCM roadshow and visited the cities of Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad and Mumbai and met potential partners and buyers.

Sharjah Airport International Free Zone (SAIF Zone) has carried out an extensive series of marketing roadshows across India this year, promoting the free zone in key cities and states throughout the country. This week, the free zone presented its proposition to investors in Kolkata in West Bengal, the third-most populous metropolitan area in India. Over the past 20 years, SAIF Zone has become a magnet for Indian investors and entrepreneurs, with 48 percent of the 7,500-plus companies registered in the free zone being of Indian origin. The free zone’s strategic location, free import and export, single-day licence issuance and tax-free status have proved to be a hit with Indian SMEs. India is one of the UAE’s primary trading partners, accounting for about 9.8 percent of the country’s total non-oil trade, buying 14.9 percent of the Emirates’ exports and 8.7 percent of its re-exports. Economists expect the total volume of bilateral trade between India and the UAE to increase from USD 60 billion in 2014 to USD 100 billion by the year 2020. A frequent visitor to India, Sharjah Airport International Free Zone embarked on it’s 2016 Indian road show in January. Organising events in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the zone first targeted Aurangabad and Pune in Maharashtra state and neighbouring Goa, before attending the MSME Business Summit in New Delhi (held with the support of India’s Ministry of Micro-Small and Medium Enterprises). Following this, the free zone also held roadshow events in Faridabad in India’s National Capital Area bordering on New Delhi; Chandigarh and Jalandhar in the northwestern state of Punjab; and Gwalior in in Madhya Pradesh. In April, SAIF Zone took its message to Mangaluru …